Quest of the Poet

Last week as I walked through a parking lot this leaf landed at my feet.

so, I picked it up...

It inspired the first stanza of this poem.

To pick up fallen leaves and press them into summertime

To woo from echo-sheaves, a few mementos, into rhyme

To enrich Ordinary with the wealthiness of less

Where lyrics of God’s glory author hope and happiness

To siphon from life’s ups and downs, keepsakes of common ground

To mend and dazzle heart shaped cups with treasures that confound

To showcase living’s simple joys with meek and thankful awe

To marvel at the patient poise of nature’s steadfast law

To thwart the sting and blight of biting words with beauty’s kiss

Life is too short to slight the sweep of so much we might miss

To cheer the wage of weariness with wonder to behold

Tendered to page through tears and tests of longing etched with gold

To leave unpenned the vile and vulgar, the boorish and base

But rather, weave a sense of smiles and friendship in its place

To hoist with holy feeling, love’s banners unfurled in font

And be a voice of healing in a broken world of want

To meet each other, heart to heart, through art of ink-finesse

Though ever face to face apart, together nonetheless

To find a diamond in the ruffled feathers of a thought

To bind the weathered wounds of love with blue forget-me-not

To will the jot and tittle of Becoming into bloom

And spill a little sunshine to a shadow-darkened room

To cast a glim of gladness into sadness that must be

And melt away brute madness with the torch of poetry

To lavish parchment pallor with the splendor of mid-June

And whisper to full color gray November’s afternoon

To coax a spark from embers of a dying place in time

And turn what one remembers into legacies of rhyme

© Janet Martin

Yesterday we woke to winter's wonderland!

Today the sun is doing its best to make it disappear

...before the next forecasted flurry!